Electronics contract manufacturer Jabil on Thursday beat Wall Street's targets for its fiscal third quarter, though its guidance was mixed. Jabil stock rose on the news.
The St. Petersburg, Fla.-based company earned an adjusted $1.99 a share on sales of $8.48 billion in the quarter ended May 31. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected Jabil earnings of $1.87 a share on sales of $8.2 billion. On a year-over-year basis, Jabil earnings increased 16% while sales advanced 2%.
Jabil noted strength in automotive, health care and industrial products.
For the current quarter, Jabil forecast adjusted earnings of $2.32 a share on sales of $8.5 billion. That's based on the midpoint of its guidance. Analysts had been looking for earnings of $2.30 a share on sales of $8.58 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter. In the same quarter last year, Jabil earned $2.34 a share on sales of $9.03 billion.
Jabil Stock Is A Recent Breakout
On the stock market today, Jabil stock climbed 5% to close at 104.64. In intraday trading, Jabil hit a record high of 105.58.
On May 26, Jabil stock broke out of a cup base at a buy point of 89.10, according to IBD MarketSmith charts.
"Our strong year-to-date performance is a testament to Jabil's strengths, specifically our diversified end-market portfolio and worldwide connected factory network, which enables us to offer unique engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain solutions to our customers across the globe," Chief Executive Kenny Wilson said in a news release.
Ranks Fifth In Industry Group
Jabil has two business segments: electronics manufacturing services and diversified manufacturing services. The electronics manufacturing unit makes gear for cloud computing, networking, data storage, industrial and other applications. The diversified manufacturing unit makes automotive, health care, mobile and other devices.
In the third quarter, sales in the electronics manufacturing unit fell 8% while sales in the diversified manufacturing unit rose 13%.
Diversified manufacturing is where Jabil reports component sales to Apple. Last year, Apple accounted for 19% of Jabil's total revenue.
Jabil ranks fifth out of 15 stocks in IBD's Electronics-Contract Manufacturing industry group, according to IBD Stock Checkup. Further, Jabil stock has an IBD Composite Rating of 93 out of 99.
Also, Jabil stock is on the IBD Tech Leaders list.
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